Religious Right Reacts to Sandy Hook Shooting by Blaming Lack of Government-Dictated School Prayer

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 12/17/2012 1:00 pm

Bryan Fischer, Mike Huckabee and James Dobson’s claims that the school shooting in Connecticut represents God’s judgment on the U.S. are no anomalies. Indeed, many other Religious Right commentators have also claimed that the Sandy Hook shooting is part of divine punishment.

David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network defended Fischer and Huckabee’s statements that the prohibition on state-mandated school prayer was responsible for the shootings:

Guess what folks? Huckabee and Fischer are not alone. There are millions of evangelicals who believe the same thing. This is not heartless. It’s based on the biblical principle of reaping and sowing. Not that these little children sowed anything but are our schools left unprotected because of the past actions of our nation when it comes to removing God from our public schools?

The conversation is now all about banning guns but should the conversation really be about allowing God back into public schools? Food for thought. It's a discussion worth having.

Connecticut Pastor Clive Calver in Charisma similarly argued that the shooting is a “wake-up call” from God to secular New Englanders:

Our prayer is that this evil, this unspeakable horror, would be the turning point for what God is doing in New England. We’ve spent the last nearly eight years here, breaking up the land and laying seed for a harvest—or revival in New England.

Maybe, just maybe, this is the wake-up call. Maybe, just maybe, this is when the church springs into action, being the hands and feet of Jesus and shining His light in this darkness. People here need Jesus and it’s our job to introduce Him to them.

But if God is for us, who can be against us? I believe God has been waiting for His people to rise up with a unified voice of righteousness against the immorality in this nation. I believe God has been patient through our prayerlessness. And I believe if we set our hearts toward reinstituting Christian prayer in schools it could help fuel the prophesied Great Awakening in this generation.

Some experts are reporting that nothing could have prevented the Newtown school shooting. Again, I beg to differ. I think prayer could have prevented it. And I think reinstating prayer in public schools can prevent the next mass murdering from stepping foot on campus and prematurily ending more innocent lives.

So, in the wake of yet another tragedy, can we please put prayer back in schools now?

William Murray of Government Is Not God PAC also said the lack of government-dictated prayer in public schools is to blame:

In the vast majority of America’s public schools, the authority of God has been replaced with the authority of the iron fist of government. Morals? Without the authority of God, there are no morals, and none are taught in the public schools today. The ethics that are taught are situational, perhaps the same situational ethics that led to the logic that caused the tragic shootings in Newtown.

WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah claimed the shooting was God’s judgment over America’s “abandonment of God and His righteous laws” and for apparently following the path of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union:

But, of course, that’s just a Band-Aid on a culture mortally wounded by its abandonment of God and His righteous laws.

And that’s why we all need to expect more Sandy Hooks, not fewer.

What should we expect when we not only prohibit weapons of self-defense in our schools, but when we banish the Creator from them?

Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decisions that removed prayer from the public schools of America. Just look what has happened since. It’s not that God is exacting punishment on America as a result. He is giving America over to the desires of its wicked heart.

…

Think of the societies and governments that have chosen this path before us – Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China. Were those societies better off as a result? Or were their judgments quickened? Did the bloodshed cease? Or did it increase beyond the imagination of anyone except the tyrants who imposed it?

I don’t fear guns. But I do fear the wrath of a God who turns His back on a nation like America has turned its back on Him.

How many more Sandy Hooks do we need to see before we realize something has gone very wrong in America?